Article · International student recruitment
Bangladesh: South Asia's Second-Largest Market for International Student Recruitment
Originally published on LinkedIn on 7 December 2021, lightly edited for clarity. Figures reflect the time of writing. For the latest rules and numbers, see study abroad news.
After India, Bangladesh is the second-largest market for international student recruitment in South Asia.
At the time of writing, Canada had become the first choice for many Bangladeshi students planning to study abroad, ahead of the UK, the USA and Australia, and Bangladesh had a large pool of prospective students for Canadian institutions.
Market overview
Close to 1 million students pass the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC, Year 12) examinations in Bangladesh each year, but public university places are limited. According to the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh, the country had 49 public universities, 45 of them running academic programmes, with a total of 465,675 seats. That means roughly half of HSC graduates cannot continue their studies at a public university.
Students who do not secure a public university place typically choose a private university or study abroad. UNESCO Institute for Statistics data showed 60,390 Bangladeshi students studying abroad in 2017. According to IRCC, 4,160 Bangladeshi students were studying in Canada in 2018 and 4,245 in 2019, and the numbers were rising every year. Students go abroad to gain qualifications and skills, become global citizens and improve their career prospects.
What makes recruitment from Bangladesh successful
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries in Bangladesh continued to grow. Between 2010 and 2013, recruiting students from Bangladesh was difficult and expensive: promoting universities and colleges locally was hard, and staff had to travel from Canada to Bangladesh to do it. Today, universities and colleges appoint qualified, experienced local Country Representatives to improve the quality of recruitment.
Bangladeshi students feel more comfortable and secure working with local representatives, and local representatives are better placed to identify genuine, high-quality applicants. Many universities and colleges have already appointed local representatives, and others are planning to. It is an exciting time for the Bangladesh market in international student recruitment.